Baggage
by captainodonewithyou
Summary: I've been thinking a lot lately about Emma's armor and her chains and how her jewelry is a bit of both. This thinking of course resulted in feels, and eventually the idea of Killian undressing her in a different way. (pirate)


When his fingers first dance down her arm and brush over the leather tied at her wrist, her heart stops. It's late and she's tired and her mind floods with a cold fog. Warm smiles and teary eyes whisper in her mind and she feels soft lips on hers and watches soft lips letting out their last ragged breath. And all she can do is watch.  
"What's it for?" the pirate asks her, because he can see by the look in her eyes that it isn't a fashion statement. He knows that everything about her serves a purpose, that everything has it's importance. She isn't the type to wear jewelry as decoration.  
She tenses away from his concerned blue gaze, but tells him anyway.  
"It's a reminder," she says, "That I'm powerless."  
He scoffs and tells her just how bloody negative he finds that notion, and she assures him that if she ever wants a pirate to lecture her about optimism he'll be the first to know.  
But his hand slips down her arm and into her palm and he weaves his fingers through hers and squeezes with gentle reassurance.

A few nights later, when he questions the silver loop around her neck, she tries not to flinch. She's known now that it was coming, and his eyes are searching hers with such a care that she can't bring herself to shut him down.  
She tells him it's also a reminder, and he promises her that he figured as much and the cool sarcasm is a strangely welcome blast over her lowered walls.  
_ "Oh, it's not worth anything. You can keep it."_  
She can't bring herself to tell him the way the words speak to her, every time she fingers the charm.  
Instead she tells him of her first foster family, and how Ms. Swan had let her play in the jewelry box. How her small hands had found the piece that in the mind of a child was a priceless treasure. How her heart had swelled when her foster mother offered it to her, something that was so important.  
How the muttered afterthought of it's worth still tore at her nightmares.  
_ You're not worth anything._  
This time he loops his arm cautiously around her waist, and something in her flutters and she leans into him.  
She likes the feeling of burying her face into his worn leather coat.

She feels numb the night after they've defeated the Witch. Numb at the exertion and at the relief and at the memory still seared into her mind, that flashes before her every time she closes her eyes. Every time she inhales and every time she exhales her heart shudders at the reminder.  
Of him, taking the bolt of light from the Witch. Leaping in front of her with such valiant stupidity that she couldn't even fathom the idea of being angry at him before he crumpled to the hard forest floor.  
Lifeless.  
How her mother gasped and how her father had to yell her back into reality, and how even then she could only blindly swing at the monkeys diving around them from all angles.  
How everything bubbling inside of her had blown over and out of her control and gusted as lightning bolts at the forces closing around them until the forest fell silent.  
How his soft lips felt and how the air he'd gasped through them just kept coming.  
How she'd brought him back to life.  
Now she sits beside him, still hesitant to open her mouth and ruin the fact that he is breathing and touching her and _alive_.  
She slips her hand into his, entwining their fingers and trapping his hand in hers.  
When he falls asleep (and his head lolls to her shoulder where she most certainly hasn't invited him, but his soft hair tickles her cheek and she likes the pressure of him relying on her), she untangles her fingers from his.  
She frees his dagger from his side and, hesitantly, saws through the leather noose wrapped around her wrist. She holds on to it for only a moment, fingers closing tightly around it as her eyes drift shut. Allowing a faint memory of gray eyes to flash before her.  
She tosses it into the campfire and the eyes burn away.

"It was my mothers," he tells her gently. They stand together on the deck of the Jolly, leaning on the railing and on each other and staring out to the sea. She's running her fingers along his chest, settling over the cool metal where the rosary she's yet to see him remove rests.  
He raises his hand and closes it around hers, still hovering over his heart.  
"When I was a boy we hadn't much money," he pauses and shifts slightly, so he's facing her, watching her. And she likes it better this way because she can see the importance of the story to him. She can see the gentle naivety in his always-cautious eyes. "Father thought she ought to sell it, to make a touch extra. He'd only spend it on rum, so mum wouldn't give it up. The fights they had over it were right terrifying," he pauses again, and laughs dryly, "Mind you, all of their fights were," he's distracted a moment, and Emma watches the sadness take over his expression, "When she was dying," he continues, hesitant now, "She entrusted it to me. She told me I ought to leave father and Liam, to sell the necklace and become an officer. Become respectable," another bitter laugh, "Alas, I could bring myself neither to sell her necklace nor to be respectable."  
The silence that follows encompasses them but isn't uncomfortable.  
"It sounds to me like she wanted you to be happy," Emma tells him softly, after the extended quiet begins to feel loud.  
"Aye," he agrees, and again falls silent. She keeps her hand pressed to his chest as his own drifts, fingering the cross carefully and absentmindedly. She can see the sentiment in his eyes now, can tell just how much the necklace means to him. His mothers last wish.  
But the pain in his eyes hurts, and she finds herself lifting to her tiptoes to press a gentle kiss to his cheek.  
"You're a good man," she whispers against his ear, before dropping back to her heels and pressing her forehead to his chest. He's stiff a moment, but then his arms wrap slowly around her middle, hand running gently up and down her back. Up to her neck, brushing her hair to the side. Then she feels metal snap and pulls hesitantly off of him, looking up at him in confusion.  
He holds her silver necklace in his palm and stares at it like it's a curse. Then he looks at her and his eyes soften.  
"You're bloody important," he tells her firmly, and she feels her face flush as he glares again at the necklace before tossing it unceremoniously over the rail and out into the sea.  
Her lips tug into a slight smile in spite of herself, staring over the uneven waters and feeling remarkably light. And then he's cautiously taking her hand in his calloused palm, turning it over and pressing something cool into her fingers. He holds her hand there a moment longer, studying her with the gentle intensity that is so characteristic of him now.  
"You're important and you're my happiness," he speaks as if he's continuing from an earlier thought and it slowly occurs to Emma that he is. "If you'd wear this for me…" his voice trails off but Emma doesn't need to hear the rest, as she cautiously lifts his treasure in front of her, admiring the worn silver necklace in her palm. She's only speechless for a moment.  
"I'd be honored to," she meets his eyes as she speaks, feeling a warm confidence she isn't sure she's ever felt before. His face lights up as she carefully loops it over her head, and his hand comes again gently to her neck to brush her hair out from under it.  
The cool metal on her neck immediately whispers urgently to her subconscious and makes her heart swell.  
_ You are loved._


End file.
